Name: A LA Chateaubriand
Ingredients: 2 or 3 cooked lobsters; ½ cup cooked mushrooms; 1 ¼ cups béchamel sauce; 2 tablespoons heavy cream; good meat glaze; fish paste; 15 small molds; water for poaching

Why it works: Lobster and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,095 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

A LA Chateaubriand

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

Dice the meat from the cooked lobsters and place in a terrine, covering it.
Dice the cooked mushrooms to match the volume of the lobster meat.

Make the lobster sauce

In a flat saucepan, reduce the béchamel sauce while stirring, adding the heavy cream and meat glaze until thick.
Mix in the diced mushrooms and cook for a few minutes to remove excess moisture.
Once the sauce is ready, remove from heat and stir in the lobster meat.
Spread the mixture in a thin layer on a flat surface and let it cool on ice.
Cut into small shapes resembling cutlets using a knife.

Mold and serve

Prepare 15 small molds by lining them with fish paste, filling with the lobster mixture, and sealing with more paste.
Place the molds in a flat pan with a little hot water, cover with paper, and poach in the oven for a few minutes.
Remove from molds and place in a flat dish, covering with a thin layer of good velouté sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,095 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,050 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Meat + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together479 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Mushroom + fishtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together444 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cooked lobster meat: Provides the main flavour and the body of the filling.
Béchamel sauce: Forms the creamy base that holds the lobster and mushrooms together.
Heavy cream: Adds richness and smoothness, helping the sauce set softly.
Cooked mushrooms: Add earthy flavour and texture to the filling.
Meat glaze: Adds concentrated savoury depth and body to the sauce.

The step that matters

Reducing the sauce to the right thickness. If the béchamel is not reduced enough, the mixture stays too loose to hold its shape when cooled and cut. If it is over-reduced, it becomes stiff and pasty. Cooking the mushrooms off excess moisture also keeps the filling from weeping and thinning the sauce.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.